A Fingerstyle Christmas
HOMESPUN
Guitar Arrangements to Seven Beloved Songs and Carols
Taught By Happy Traum.
Level 3
85-minute DVD or VHS, includes music and tab

These seven traditional Christmas songs and carols have been specially arranged so that even an early-intermediate guitarist can play them, but more advanced players will have much to learn as well.

Drawing on his experience as one of America's most popular guitar teachers, Happy Traum has carefully chosen each classic song for its "playability" as well as its timeless beauty. The songs range from fingerpicking versions of old-English carols to a bluesy African American Christmas spiritual. Once mastered, these guitar pieces will become favorites season after season for years to come.

The beauty of this lesson is that you can make each tune as simple or complex as you want to. The easiest of these arrangements will provide wonderful pieces to learn for the holidays coming up, but you can also continue your studies at a more advanced level. Each song will provide important insights into different aspects of the guitar, including fingerstyle technique, harmony lines, moving basses, alternate chord shapes, use of the entire fingerboard, variations on a theme and many other insights to help make you a better guitarist, regardless of what songs you play.

Here's what you'll be playing: "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear," "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," "What Child Is This?" ("Greensleeves"), "Pretty Little Baby," "Silent Night," "Twas On A Night Like This" (Italian Christmas Carol) and "Jingle Bells."

About Happy Traum
During the past forty years, Happy Traum's avid interest in traditional and contemporary music has brought him recognition as a performer, writer, editor, folklorist, teacher and recording artist. He has performed extensively throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia and Japan, and has appeared on recordings as a featured artist, as a member of various ensembles, and as an accompanist. He has played and recorded with Bob Dylan, Chris Smither, Maria Muldaur, Eric Andersen, Rory Block, Jerry Jeff Walker, Allen Ginsberg, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel and innumerable others.
Happy is the author of more than a dozen best-selling guitar instruction books, has written numerous magazine columns and articles, and for three years was editor of Sing Out! The Folksong Magazine. He and his brother, Artie Traum, have been playing as a duo since 1968. Their first two Capitol albums, "Happy And Artie Traum" and "Double Back," are widely considered to be classics. Long-time residents of Woodstock, NY, Happy and Artie co-produced several important records for Rounder, featuring some of the area's finest folk and rock musicians. These included "Mud Acres, Music Among Friends" and "Woodstock Mountains." Happy and Artie's album "Hard Times In The Country" featured liner notes by Allen Ginsberg. In 1993, Happy and Artie released their latest duet album, "The Test Of Time," featuring traditional and contemporary songs backed up by some of Woodstock's finest musicians.
Happy's solo albums include "Relax Your Mind," "American Stranger," "Bright Morning Stars" and "Friends And Neighbors." A compilation CD, "Buckets Of Songs," has been released by Shanachie Records. In 2001, “Bright Morning Stars” was reissued in CD format in the U.S. (Lark’s Nest Music) and in Japan (Slice of Life Records).
Perhaps Happy Traum's most important and lasting musical contribution has been Homespun Tapes, which he and his wife Jane founded in 1967. This dynamic and growing mail order company has a catalog of approximately 400 different music instruction lessons on audio cassette, CD and video tape, taught by top professional performing musicians. Happy produces all of the lessons, and brings to Homespun his many years of experience as a popular and productive member of the music community.